Poster sessions at LingComm25 are not your typical academic-style poster presentations—rather, these posters are conversation starters, meant to spark discussions between conference attendees and poster presenters. Posters cover a range of lingcomm topics, from lingcomm on Instragram across languages, to lingcomm in museums, at science festivals, and in the classroom.
You can read all poster abstracts below.
(Odd-numbered posters are presented in Session 1. Even-numbered posters are presented in Session 2. View the conference programme here.)
- Portia Washington & Hannah Mechtenberg, An Adaptable Model for Science Communication and Lab Outreach: The Lab Digest
The Spoken Word, produced by Portia Washington and Hannah Mechtenberg, is a research magazine written by undergraduate researchers. We publish annually, and are currently preparing our tenth issue. Our primary audience are patients with language disorders and their caregivers. Patients are an inherently diverse group, spanning all demographic dimensions. They are also largely excluded from engaging with language research, which we’ve sought to correct. We aspire to include everyone in language science, regardless of their background. Our articles feature themes of patient advocacy, cutting-edge clinical interventions, and inclusion and representation in the language sciences. - Luciana Sanchez Mendes & Vitor Hochsprung, Why (not) Indigenous Languages on Instagram?
The main goal of this poster is to discuss how the scientific dissemination of grammatical studies of indigenous languages spoken in Brazil can contribute to the development of metalinguistic awareness of Brazilian Portuguese speakers in their native language. We base our idea on two theoretical backgrounds: indigenous languages Linguistics and the scientific dissemination of Linguistics in the Brazilian context. By combining these two areas of knowledge, we propose that we, as linguists, should include the goal of developing metalinguistic awareness in the scientific dissemination strategies of our field. Our strategy for this is to adopt indigenous languages as tools for popularizing our studies. - Charlie Farrington & Tyler Kendall, Creating and Maintaining the Online Resources for African American Language
The Online Resources for African American Language (ORAAL) was created as a host for the Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL; Kendall & Farrington 2023) as well as a clearinghouse for information about AAL. Originally housed at the University of Oregon, ORAAL is now available at oraal.github.io. In this poster, we discuss the information available on ORAAL, as well as creating and maintaining new content for different audiences (e.g. researchers, educators, and the public). We also hope to hear from the LingComm audience about the kinds of information they would like to see on such a website. - Leslie C. Moore, Laura Wagner, Anna Babel, & Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, ¡Aquí se habla español! Public Outreach at COSI in Spanish
The goal of this project was to develop a set of language science activities that featured the Spanish language as their subject matter and could be conducted in Spanish. These activities were integrated into existing public outreach efforts of the Language Sciences Research Lab embedded within a science center. In our lightening talk, we will provide a brief overview of this pandemic-era project and discuss 3 key lessons learned: (1) how and why to follow the lead of our community partners when developing language science outreach, how to make a video pivot when f2f outreach is not possible, and (3) navigating and negotiating outreach language choices in ways that respect diverse preferences among museum visitors. - Malwina Gudowska, Mother Tongue Tied & Motherlingual
A book and newsletter exploring the intersections of multilingualism, language, motherhood, memory and more:
MOTHER TONGUE TIED: On Language, Motherhood & Multilingualism – Disrupting Myths & Finding Meaning (Footnote Press, 2024) explores the emotional weight of raising multilingual children while grappling with one’s own linguistic and cultural identity and notions of home. The book sheds light on the ways in which we navigate language, its power to shape and reshape lives, and the ripple effects felt far beyond one home or one language. It is an examination of everything from love in multiple languages, language and food, the care work of raising multilingual children, to accentism, linguicide and language revitalisation.
MOTHERLINGUAL, a “Top Parenting Substack” (Motherly, 2024) continues the conversation with weekly newsletters on linguistic inequality, raising multilingual and multicultural children, ideas of heritage, home, identity, and much more. - Claudia Borghetti, Caterina Mauri, Ludovica Pannitto, Eleonora Zucchini, & Gianluca Iacovantuono, Exploring and experiencing spoken Italian through the KIParla corpus
The poster will illustrate a dissemination activity designed for the European Researchers’ Night 2024, based on the KIParla corpus, a collection of more than 200 hours of conversation in Italian recorded all over the country. The activity consists of two board games, targeted at the general public, that aim to deconstruct the idea of a unitary linguistic identity.
By listening to audio tracks and answering to quizzes, players explore and discover a series of lexical and grammatical properties that characterize regional and social Italian varieties, and that can influence how language is spoken in conversation. The activity then wraps up with a final set of questions aimed at eliciting thoughts and considerations about linguistic diversity. - Suzanne Evans Wagner, Betsy Sneller, & Jack Rechsteiner, Branding your research
The science communication literature is often oriented to conveying research results and/or established knowledge to various publics. Yet researchers, including linguists, also communicate with publics in order to recruit them as participants. Recruitment communication must economically convey that the researcher is both trustworthy and approachable. We’ll share our experiences of ‘branding’ our longitudinal sociolinguistic project, MI Diaries, include examples from other projects (Manchester Voices, Our Dialects, Accent Bias in Britain) and give some tips on how to apply brand thinking. - Charlotte Vaughn, Sarah Nam, Ashley Chau, Lyosha Genzel, Tzipi Harker, Isabel Harris, & Stacey Torbeso, The Language Science Station at Planet Word
The Language Science Station at Planet Word is a pop-up laboratory for research and engagement about linguistics. We invite visitors to Planet Word, a museum about words and language in Washington DC, to participate in real research studies, and we talk with them about studying language scientifically. This poster will be presented by several student RAs at the LSS, sharing their experiences doing one-on-one lingcomm at the museum. - Ana Beatriz Arêas da Luz Fontes, Bárbara Cardoso de Souza, & Lívia Leote Leite, How we have tried to make research findings on Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism more accessible: a report from @prolingue_gp
Though scientific communication is an important topic on its own, creating avenues to have research findings reach readers from non-academic environments could prove a real challenge. In our research group, ProLinGue (Processamento de Linguagem Bilíngue), such a challenge has been one of our main concerns. We have thus created an Instagram account (@prolinguegp), in which we share findings and concepts from Psycholinguistics in simplified, more accessible language. At LingComm25, we would like to share our work and show the strategies and challenges we have found in the process of sharing academic knowledge in an approachable way, engaging followers, and interacting with other research groups through our Instagram account. - Mary Kohn, Multilingual Midwest: Decolonial and Antiracist Pedagogies at Science Festivals
Science festivals provide opportunities to incorporate decolonial and anti-racist pedagogies into science tabling events. This poster provides one model where volunteers offer participants a chance to print a spectrogram of their voice. While waiting, participants learn how place names reflect the languages and immigration patterns of the peoples in the region, destabilizing discourses of the monolingual English-speaking Midwest. Special emphasis is placed on Native American place names from languages still spoken in the region, emphasizing Indigenous survivance. Participants learn how their voices reflect their culture to build deeper connections to the material and are directed to documentaries on www.KansasTreaties.com. - Misa Suzuki, Bonnie Barrett, & Deanna Gagne (Faculty Sponsor), In Your Hands: Empowering the Next Generation of Deaf Scientists with Cognitive Science and Linguistics Communication Outreach
Signing Scientists’ recent project, “In Your Hands: Promoting Early Diverse Deaf Engagement in the Cognitive Sciences,” uses principles of linguistics communication (Gawne & McCulloch, 2023) to foster early interest and participation of deaf and hard of hearing K-12 students in the cognitive sciences. Since 2023, our multidisciplinary team of graduate students has created accessible linguistics and cognitive science-related educational materials in American Sign Language, connected with local educators, and visited schools to teach students about bilingualism and the brain. In this presentation, we will share our methodologies and insights gained from our experiences in science-communication, linguistics-communication, and accessible content creation. - @sl2ngistik, Decoding teen lingo: experiences of running Slängistik
Have you ever felt old while listening to how younger people speak? Or perhaps your own vocabulary has left someone with gray hairs? With these thoughts in mind, in 2023, I created ‘Slängstik’ (aka @sl2ngistik on TikTok and Instagram) – an (anonymous) account where I decode words, phrases, and emojis that are popular with Estonia’s younger generation. This account has not only given me an insider’s view of what it’s like to be a (linguistic) content creator, but also revealed how different age groups engage with and react to teen lingo in a non-English-speaking setting. - Montreal Benesch, Pablo Cazares, Max Ongbongan, & Ray Perry, The trans*languaging Art Show
trans*languaging was an art show based in Portland, OR that centered on fourteen multilingual trans artists and how our relationships with our languages are shaped by our identities. Representing our stories in audio, visual, and physical formats engaged the senses and highlighted the intersection of language and aesthetics, while the format of an art show allowed these stories to reach new audiences. Visitors expressed strong emotional responses to the exhibit, and it can be experienced in online form at https://transxlanguaging.wordpress.com/, with great thanks to LingComm for the support of the Kirby Conrod LGBTQ+ LingComm grant. - Marisa Brook, Proposing an online curated Q&A blog/repository for public questions
Since 2004, the Stanford Department of Genetics and a STEM museum called The Tech have run an online column, ‘Ask a Geneticist’. Questions submitted by curious members of the public are answered in a lively and accessible way, with text and illustrations, by genetics faculty members or Ph.D. students. I say we do the same for linguistics! A blog, but also a repository of earlier Q&As, managed by a team of experts, with particular attention paid to social-justice issues. Meant to complement and draw upon existing #lingcomm efforts rather than supplant any of these. Hoping to find colleagues interested in taking part as contributing editors/writers, illustrators or web designers, social media managers, fundraising finders, etc. - Kyler Laycock and Nikole D. Patson, Sparking early interest in language science with the Girl Scouts
Our lab’s previous research has shown that science museum visitors find language science demonstrations not only engaging but also transformative in shifting their attitudes towards the belief that language can be studied scientifically (Kaiser et al., 2024; Patson et al., 2024; Wagner et al., 2024). These demonstrations have the potential to broaden participation in science, thanks to the universal appeal of language. This presentation will unveil an exciting new program developed in collaboration with the Girl Scouts, aimed at sparking an early interest in language science among girls. - – Withdrawn –
- Emmanuel Oladipupo Adegbuyi, Cultivating the Next Generation of Scholars: The Talklin NG Model
TalkLin NG was founded as a platform to bridge the gap between academia and society. In Nigeria, the understanding of linguistics and its practical applications remains limited to a select few in the academia. To address this, TalkLin NG promotes language awareness, advocates for indigenous languages, and empowers young linguists. Through various initiatives, we aim to make linguistics accessible to the public and demonstrate its relevance to everyday life. This poster showcases some of our efforts in achieving these goals. - Naomi Peck, Filipe Figueiredo Cruz, Myriam Michalopoulou, Pramodya Sewwandi Perera, & Albert Tallai, Zur Sprache kommen: Making research on endangered languages visible
In this poster, we talk about our experiences in putting together the museum exhibition “Zur Sprache kommen: Visualising research on endangered languages” at the Uniseum Freiburg in Summer 2024. This exhibition represents the end product of a collaboration with active researchers and community members within a #LingComm class. The aim of the exhibition was to introduce concepts around language endangerment in a de-exoticising manner and make these concepts relevant to visitors’ daily lives. We share our experiences around the logistics of putting together an exhibition, working with both physical and digital media, embedding interactive elements into the space, and designing the accompanying outreach programme. - Edissa Dorita Queiroz Boechat, Stella Maria Palitot Dias, Márcio Martins Leitão, Carolina Gomes da Silva, & Juliana Novo Gomes, Linguisticamente Falando: Active Methodologies in the Teaching of Linguistics and Science Communication to Connect Science and Education
Associated with the Federal University of Paraíba, Linguisticamente Falando is an extension project that promotes the dialogue between linguistics education and scientific communication – mainly using active methodologies. Its platforms, including a website and Instagram, showcase authorial and other contents featuring quizzes and interviews developed by students in regular subjects under teacher guidance. In line with Pacheco (2019), this project has an ethical commitment with education, impacting directly on student autonomy, through project based learning, students lead knowledge construction, enhancing effectiveness by the variation in learning modes among students, which showed effectively disseminated academic productions. - Romi Román & Emily Herman, Linguistic Diversity Across the Lifespan (LinDiv): Outreach and Science Communication
Language Diversity Across the Lifespan (LinDiv) is a traineeship program that aims to bridge that gap between human technology and language science by applying the principles of integrated learning and transdisciplinary team science. Communication science and outreach are key components of this program. The following poster summarizes our work with different communities, features sample activities and shows how we have achieved successful outreach by following the strands for science communication (Wagner & MacKee, 2023). - Sol Tovar, Class Zines as a SciComm tool in the Linguistics Classroom
This poster explores the application of zine methodologies as a tool of feminist and critical pedagogy in the linguistics classroom. This project was carried out within the seminar ‘A Linguistics of the Oppressed’, a course destined to bachelor, master and teacher training students and designed to investigate how language shapes relationships of power and oppression. On their class feedback, students have reported feeling more empowered to express their personal experiences and insights on complex issues. The creative and less formal nature of zines encourages a break from traditional academic outputs, allowing students to experiment with storytelling, visual design, and collective knowledge-sharing. - Colette Feehan, Articulatory and Acoustic Phonetics of Voice Acting
Have you ever wondered how voice actors do THAT? Many folks do not realize that a lot of the child-like voices you hear in animated media are actually adults doing some very sneaky and complex articulatory linguistics–and most of the actors don’t even really know how they do it! This poster will summarize several of the articulatory strategies that adult voice actors can use in order to sound like a child. - Jill Hallett, Date my course: Constructing dating profiles to pique undergrad interest in Linguistics
Dream Date #5 has a favorite notebook. Their perfect date includes gazing into each other’s eyes and asking if this sentence makes sense. Dream Date #8 is turned on by someone highly contrastive and is not looking for anyone overly aspirational. Dream Date #6’s favorite color is qīng, (it means blue, green, or black). They like solving puzzles and are turned off by orientalism.
While the Dream Dates above might be swiped left on a dating site, they are far more appealing to an overwhelmed undergrad than the official course description. This lightning talk offers a unique way to get students hyped up about Linguistics courses prior to registration. - Sharon Unsworth, Pim Franssen, Imme Lammertink, & Fleur Vissers, The Language Stone: Escape game for kids
The Language Stone is an escape-room-type interactive game centered on a large ‘stone’. Children (often together with adults) have to solve linguistically-informed puzzles to uncover what’s inside. They helped along by linguist Dr. Rosetta Steen, who appears on a screen in the stone, providing brief explanations of what they’ve learned. We co-created the stone together with a professional escape room company and have tested it out on various locations. It’s a bit hit with young and old! - Cooper Bedin & Montreal Benesch, “Representing everyone else outside these two boring genders”: The role of popular media in trans language activism
This poster uses the TV show “And Just Like That…” to frame a discussion of trans language activism and the problems with pronouns seemingly always being the beginning and end of trans-inclusive language practices. How can we use LingComm to take insights from trans linguistics (Zimman, 2020) and extend them beyond the academy? “Linguists have a unique opportunity—and, as a result, a responsibility to use our [training] to support trans advocacy,” (Zimman & Brown, 2024). It is more important than ever to positively impact popular discourses—for example, those on TV shows like AJLT—about trans people and trans language. - Logan Kearsley, The Linguistically Interesting Media Index
The Linguistically Interesting Media Index reviews media—books, TV shows, movies, etc.—of all genres, with an aim to providing case studies for how other creators can improve the representation of language and linguistics in their works. This is lingcomm targeted at a very specific audience: authors and screenwriters, mainly of science fiction and fantasy. Across several years of reviews, I have developed a typology of techniques which authors can use to effectively present multilingual content to monolingual audiences, and recommendations for how linguistics can be employed as the science in “science fiction” beyond common rehashings of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
LingComm 